The prevalence of podcasts must seem very strange to the generation that watched interest in radio steadily decline. However, in a lot of ways I think it makes sense. The rise of podcasts sits at an intersection of two things. First is on-demand streaming: we want to be able to listen to things when we want to and not have our schedule dictated by others. The second is a parallel to smaller publishing houses and companies that feel less mainstream. This isn’t always the case, but it’s what it feels like–when Netflix started producing their own material it felt like they were subverting the status quo and showing a middle finger to larger production companies, but now they probably should be considered one in their own right. This means that podcasts can cover a wide range of topics, with less extensive editing or semi-censorship, just so long as they can find a fanbase that wants to listen to them.
I drive a lot to get to and from work, and between that and my issues with listening to audiobooks (bad readings or, more commonly, the price tag), I listen to a lot of podcasts. My mood varies from day to day, so I hunt out a range of different podcasts to suit my mood on any particular day.
While podcasts are pretty prevalent these days, I still come across a lot of people who haven’t had much of a chance to explore them. So I’m going to take this blog post to ramble about some of the ones I listen to under the guise of recommending them. I think the ones I listen to can be loosely grouped into five categories. So I’m going to do that.
- Stay Informed
There are occasions where it can be difficult to find time to stay up-to-date with the news. Stories seem to break with disturbing regularity, and you have to read a lot of different sources to get the full picture. Being able to listen to some of the news reliably, then pause it when you get to work and pick up where you left off is fantastic. I’m honestly looking for some more podcasts that fill this need, so let me know in the comments.
My favorite for this at the moment is Stay Tuned with Preet. It’s presented by Café, a production company that, from what I can tell, was first started for just this podcast. The show is hosted by Preet Bharara who was the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York before he was fired by Trump. He obviously has a strong legal background and can elaborate on a lot of the things going on in the news in a way that some journalists, lacking law degrees, struggle to do.
Each episode opens with him answering listener questions, usually about the news of the past week. He was a prosecutor and I don’t always agree with his opinion on some aspects of the legal system, but he helps you to be informed about it and isn’t bullish in his approach. The second half of the episodes are interviews, often with high profile people related to key news stories – after the Helsinki summit with Russia he had one of the people that Putin requested access to on the show, which helped to give a much better perspective on that whole situation. He closes out the show with his own feelings on a story that struck him from the past week. This can sometimes be a small story that is worth highlighting, or a more sentimental take on something and how it related to him, which is usually warming in a way.
Again, on the look out for recommendations of more such things.
- Learn Stuff
I guess this is also about being informed, but less on current events and more just about the world around you. Podcasts that teach you how things work, why things happened the way they did, stuff from science, history, politics, entertainment, etc. etc.
I have a couple here that are very different in tone. The first is the one everyone knows: RadioLab. Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich host this show, which takes on a lot of different topics. They have a wide team of presenters, researchers, and producers, which lend a different flavor to various episodes, and each episode is thoroughly researched. They’ll occasionally cover something that is relevant to the times, but because of the time behind each episode they tend to be detached from current affairs and more likely to cover scientific developments. The episodes “From Tree to Shining Tree” and “Alpha Gal” are two that really stand out to me from them. As far as criticism goes, I saw the science author Casey Schwartz present once and she was asked about this show. She responded that she didn’t listen to it because she felt it was too “over-produced.” Which is fair. They do a lot of mixed-media and sound editing, which sometimes adds a fun interesting element, but sometimes gets annoying and detracts from the information they’re imparting. So be warned.
RadioLab also have an outstanding spinoff spearheaded by Jad Abumrad, More Perfect. I’d recommend this series to anyone, but if you’re living in the States at the moment it is a must-listen. They’ve so far done 2 seasons with around 20 episodes total. The show goes into the history of the Supreme Court by looking at landmark decisions, how it was founded, what it means, and how it functions. With the current movements on the Supreme Court, I cannot recommend this series highly enough. Occasionally depressing, but that’s more the world’s fault than it is the series’
The last one in this category is the much lighter podcast from the makers of Today I Found Out – The BrainFood Show. This show only started this year and took a little while to find its footing as it was trying to do too many things in one episode. Daven Hiskey and Simon Whistler present the show. Daven does most of the research and then it’s presented as a very natural conversation. There’s a lot of tangents off to other moments of interest, but they also go in depth in their conversations. The two come across as very genuine personalities and it makes for fun easy listening. (Except for the occasions when the subject matter gets a little dark because they’re talking about something like World War II).
If your objective in life is to learn something new everyday, these are the podcasts for you. As long as you’re willing for the thing you learn to be about the time a bear was an official member of the Polish army.
- Other Experiences/Perspectives
Part of the whole being a “citizen of the world” thing is understanding that world as it is seen by others. The first one I have for this category is closer to me because it deals with immigration and I am an immigrant living in the United States (although my experience in that matter is somewhat skewed by being white). With the current focus on borders around the world, this is another one I would highly recommend to everyone. It provides great perspectives on how other people view the world and do the things they do, and also manages to be funny.
This is the second podcast that has been produced by Café, who I mentioned make Stay Tuned. The show is Remade in America with Bassem Youseff. Youseff was a political satirist in Egypt (apparently known as the Jon Stewart of Egypt, if that gives you an idea, and has also appeared on the Daily Show), but had to flee the country. He has made America his home and is making a podcast discussing some of those experiences. He brings on an array of people with different experiences to discuss how their identity interacts with America. While the show is from the view of an immigrant, it also deals with multiple facets of life as an outside, including issues of race, gender, and sexuality.
Also in this category is the podcast from Dylan Marron, Conversations with People Who Hate Me. Marron has been attacked online for being outspoken on his political views, for who he is as a person, and I’m sure some other reasons too. In the early episodes of the show, he contacts people who have attacked him online and has a conversation with them. In later episodes he introduces a secondary format in which he mediates conversations between victims of online harassment and their harassers. He doesn’t seek to change minds, just attempts to get to a point of mutual understanding. It’s a fascinating listen and can sometimes get quite emotional.
- Narratives
Not having any visuals presents an interesting struggle for podcasts that don’t just want to be an audiobook or a traditional radio drama, but also presents some possibilities to break convention with interesting narrative types to get around that presentation style. I could probably go a little off the rails here, so I’m just going to talk about the company Night Vale Presents.
The company’s first show was Welcome to Night Vale and was the second podcast I ever listened to (the first being RadioLab). The show presents itself as being a community radio broadcast for the town of Night Vale. Night Vale is a small desert community with the things any usual small town has: a house that isn’t really there, a secret police department, and a forbidden dog park full of dark hooded figures. The meta-radio style makes it stand out as they take on Lovecraftian stories with a steadily growing cast of characters, and include musical interludes from small bands in place of the weather segment. (The show also features Dylan Marron of Conversations with People Who Hate Me playing Carlos, the Scientist).
The Orbiting Human Circus of the Air does some similar things as it follows Julian, the fictional janitor of the Eiffel Tower. The tower is the venue for the radio show “The Orbiting Human Circus” which Julian provides a behind the scenes view of as he repeatedly bungles the show. The lack of visual medium allows them to describe fantastical performances in vivid detail without having to worry as much about an SFX budget. The show is created by Julian Koster, who people might be familiar with from the band Neutral Milk Hotel, and also stars John Cameron Mitchell, who you might know from Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
Finally, one of my favourites. Alice Isn’t Dead is a semi-horror show about a woman road-tripping across America in a truck as she searches for her wife (Alice), who she thought was dead. The whole thing is told through the main character’s narration of events as she speaks into the radio in her car, broadcasting, and addressing Alice as if she can hear her. The click off of the radio signaling the passage of time works particularly well and it’s very cleverly done. It’s a well-spun narrative and is currently in its third and final season and I don’t want to spoil it more than that. It can be a little scary and has some graphic descriptions so it might not be for you, but I’d recommend giving it a try. There’s also a book of the narrative coming out this October (2018).
- Creative Understandings
This category is a little harder to quantify. I only have one for it at the moment, but it is for podcasts that do deep dives into creative works. I’m aware that there are some others out there such as “Harry Potter and the Sacred Text” and “The Wheel of Time Spoilers Podcast” but I haven’t listened to them yet, either because I haven’t found the time, or because I hate spoilers with a passion.
In I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats, Joeseph Fink, co-creator of Welcome to Night Vale, sits down with John Darnielle, primary member of the band The Mountain Goats, and they…well… only listen to The Mountain Goats. Fink is a huge fan of the band and credits them with influencing his own writing. In the first season they take the album “All Hail West Texas” and go through it track by track, one per episode. They listen to the track, and then they talk about it for a while. They then bring in a guest musician to discuss the track before playing a cover done by that artist. Artists in the first season include Laura Jane Grace, Amanda Palmer, and Dessa, just to name a few. I did not know the band before the show. They’re very strange. And I really enjoyed it. It’s a great insight into the “creative process” and how some music works, and also has a lot of interesting stories. Great for musicians, writers, and strange people.
There we go. I said I was going to ramble about podcasts and I think I can say I have successfully done that at this point. I’m going to leave it there. If you listen to any of these it would be great to hear what you think of them, even if you think I’m wrong. Let me know if you have any podcast recommendations for me, or any questions/disagreements about what I’ve said above in the comments on here, or on my other social media platforms! Also, let me know what else you might like me to ramble about on this blog. I have plenty of ideas for my own amusement, but I’d love to hear yours too!
I’ll have to add some of these to my list. Thanks for the recommendations!